The New York Islanders are preparing for big changes as the team will move to Brooklyn after next season, however they may be in store for some more changes as reports have speculated that majority owner Charles Wang is in talks of selling his stake in the team.
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TSN reported early Friday morning that Wang may decide to sell his majority stake in the team and that while talks are underway, there is no telling whether or not it gets done.
Wang has owned the club for nearly 15 years and after failure to find the funds to build a replacement arena for the run-down Nassau Coliseum in Long Island, Wang signed a deal in 2012 to move the team to Brooklyn once the lease expires in 2015.
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TSN reported that the Islanders franchise loses an estimated $10 million per season and that the team may face a $75 million loan repayment at the end of this season.
With Wang, a Long Island native, likely to sell the team, one name that emerged as a potential buyer is Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, who already owns the Brooklyn Nets. The Nets will share a building with the Islanders, so it's logical that the Nets owner --who has plenty of coin to back him -- could buy the Islanders and own all the tenants in the Barclays Center.
Former Madison Square Garden president Bob Gutkowski noted back in 2012 that Prokhorov made the most sense as a potential buyer of the team.
"The best deal is for the owners of the Nets and Barclays to buy the Islanders," Gutkowski, a partner in Lake Success, New York-based Innovative Sports & Entertainment, which advises private equity in sports, entertainment and media company investment, said via SB Nation.. "And if they can't do that, they need to work out some kind of equity deal."
Islander fans are starved for an owner that can have the financial freedom to spend money to bring the team back to prominence and the success it had when it won four straight Stanley Cups from the 1979-80 season through the 1982-83 season.
An owner like Prokhorov could help bring the team back to what it once was, and may even give it the financial backing to overtake Brooklyn from the Nets in the long run, though it remains to be seen.
Even if the team remains a No. 2 behind the Nets in Brooklyn, a change of ownership and the move to New York City could propel them to compete with the division rival New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils as the heart of the Metropolitan Area hockey teams.
Islanders fans have long-awaited a new owner and a new arena, and while the team will move to a new venue in 2015, a new owner could be on its way as well.
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